Africa in Bid to Bridge Massive Gap in Infrastructure Financing

Ethiopia’s Minister for Water, Irrigation & Electricity, Selishi Bekele (PhD), is one of the Ethiopian officials attending an investement forum that kicked off in Johannesburg, South Africa, today.

The forum represents the “collective will of the century” to mobilize and fill a resource gap to finance infrastructure building in the continent, according to Akinwumi A. Adesina, president of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), the organiser of the forum.

The three-day forum will be measured by its promise to meet the investment needs of Africa, which are estimated to reach 170 billion dollars. This figure is less than one percent of the 131 trillion dollars worth of assets under management across the world.

Organisers of the forum pledge to match 230 projects in energy, transport, ICT, industry, telecom and agriculture estimated to be worth 208 billion dollars. No less than 61 deals worth 40 billion dollars are expected to get closed this week.

“We’re navigating through all these [projects],” Selishi told Fortune on the sideline of a press briefing on Power Africa, the United State’s flagship infrastructure financing programme for Africa.


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